All of these beautiful nursery rhyme collages are original designs created from scrap papers reproduced for her collection of nursery rhyme prints and posters are printed on high quality 100% recycled paper with soy ink. You can see many more amazing eco-friendly art pieces at Print Pattern Paper.

See a close up of these cute designs in the gallery below!

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What you can win:

One reader will win a spooky set of 10 “Halloween Crow” postcards (shown above) AND a sweet limited edition “Pommebirds” print (shown below). The 10 postcards are 4×6 chipboard kraft 103lb thick, with soy based ink and the lovely print is a letterpress limited edition (one of just 300 prints); 8.5×11 acid free archival Stonehenge printmaking paper and soy ink (frame and matte not include). This is an amazing prize and arrives just in time to perk up your autumn.

How to enter:

Since we’re giving away some Halloween goodies, leave a comment on this post telling me how your family are planning to celebrate a green Halloween this year (no it’s not too early to plan!). Are you handing out Fair Trade treats? Making recycled costumes? What? Let me know. IF your family does not celebrate Halloween, that’s cool too. Instead tell me one thing your family is doing to green your life this fall.

RULES:

1. If you don’t follow the ONE how to enter rule above I’ll delete your comment. Comments that say, “Hey, enter me” will be disqualified.
2. Anyone with a mailing address in the U.S. can enter. Sorry, no international or Canadian entries on this giveaway.
3. Comment entries must be posted by September 11, 2009 – midnight my time (west coast).

I’ll randomly draw one winner on Sept 12th, post the winner here, and send the winner an email with more details.

Good luck!

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About INK + WIT:

The company was founded by artist Tara Hogan who also does all the illustration and design for INK+WIT’s lovely products. Her visions and pieces are beautiful and often nature based which I like. About her perspective, Hogan says, “I have a loving appreciation for nature’s intricate beauty combined with modern urban style. I see the world as organic and bright.”

INK + WIT products:

The INK + WIT collection consists of calendars, children’s prints and posters, letterpress note-cards, wedding invites, children’s invites, tea towels, postcards, and more. Hogan even recently partnered with BabyBe Organic Baby Clothing for a line of adorable organic clothing. See a gallery below of some awesome INK + WIT products.

What makes INK + WIT eco-friendly?

• The company letterpress and offset print in all of their paper products.
• 100% cotton paper made from tree free fibers along with 100% post consumer recycled paper is used.
• Ink is soy and water based.

All of Tara Hogan’s designs are beautiful, whimsical, sweet, or all of the above as you can see in the gallery below.

Coming up an amazing giveaway from INK + WIT that you won’t want to miss so stay tuned.

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What are HappyMais: Natural arts and crafts material made with GM-free certified cornstarch and dyed with non-toxic food colorings. You can use them to build just about any old thing you can think of and there’s no glue needed. HappyMais stick together with water.

Eco-perks:

• 100% biodegradable
• Non-toxic
• For every box sold, the manufacturer makes a donation to the Earth Fund Association.
• If you buy from Peek A Green you’ll get a tree planted for your purchase.

See Cedar’s take on this craft material below – neither of us like talking on camera or being on camera much, which you’ll likely be able to tell.

There’s a boy’s set and girl’s set available, which frankly is kind of silly since this is an any gender sort of toy, but that’s how they come. Each set comes with over 700 pieces in various bright colors, sizes and pre-cut shapes to help children with their creations, a natural cellulose sponge, a Mater-Bi knife (made from cornstarch) and a cardboard sheet with pop-out designs – flowers & jewels shapes for the girls or pop-out monsters & insects shapes for the boys. Either set would make a great gift or summer activity. Cedar loves his.

Has your child ever played with these?

[images via Peek A Green]

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Project: Recycled tumbling friend.

You will need:

1. Felt of any color (scraps will work).
2. Glue and or tape
3. Scrap of poster board — really the trick is you need thick paper material that can be rolled. You could use thin cardboard too.
4. A 1/2 inch in diameter steel ball. You can get one at your local auto repair shop — ask for an old, worn wheel bearing ball. Any heavy ball will work. It does need to be heavy though so a marble (no).
5. Markers — permanent are best.

Instructions:

1. Form a cylinder out of the poster board. The cylinder should be about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long. You can make it any size, I suppose, but I’ve never tried longer than 3 inches. It should be just round enough to go around your ball bearing. Tape it together well.
2. Cut out two poster board circles and glue or tape one to one end of your cylinder.
3. Put the ball bearing inside the tube, and tape or glue on the other circle.
4. To make the “friend” part cut a body out of felt that can either wrap around the cylinder or try the hole method (see picture below).
5. Insert the tube into the friend felt or wrap the cylinder.

Place your little tumbling friend on the floor and let the fun tumbling start. So, I don’t have a picture of how to do this which means I have to draw you some. Yikes. We made actual friends a while back but forgot to take pictures.

This first picture illustrates the tube set up:

Here is the felt set-up. You can cut the felt to resemble a dress or shirt and pants. You fold a bit over at the top which is where the tube fits in.

The final tumbling friend!: I added green felt hair to my friend and little cardboard hands and feet. You can make your friend any way you want. You could even make tumbling animals, dinosaurs, or flowers.

Acrobatic toys are rumored to have originated in China but that’s really only a guess. Many cultures have created their own version of this toy through the ages.

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Recently I got an email about some very nice vinyl art that I’ll be talking about at the music blog but I also thought would be very cool to show here.

Daniel Edlen is the artist behind Vinyl Art, a really neat site that showcases Daniel’s portraits of musicians. The difference here is that he paints them on worn vinyl. This is such a great idea because although there are things you can do with worn vinyl often people just toss them. You know how much waste the used records of the past creates. A great big heaping pile I’m sure. This is one way to decorate your home with creative recycled art.

Take a look at two of my favorites.

First, my King… who is not Elvis.

The next one is amazing…

I really love the John Lennon piece.

He’s created many, many more. There are pieces at the online gallery of Santana, R.E.M, Billie Holiday, and more.

This is one good way to green your lifestyle without compromising an artistic home decorating style — buy recycled art. Many artists are out there using recycled or greener materials now and it just makes less sense to invest in brand new material art.

Visit Vinyl Art to see and learn more.  

Is there an artist who works in recyclables that you adore? Let me and other readers know about them in the comments!

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